My birthday was Thursday and when I wake up this morning it will be Mother’s Day. I usually find these (and Christmas and Easter) difficult. It is tough for me to be around my family (my parents and sister) around these times, because the old dynamics are reinforced.

I grew up with two half sisters and my parents in a very strange family dynamic. My eldest sister told me she was my second mum and would always protect me, but when I was 5 and she was 13 she got into sex, moved in with her father for a while in a housing area and I was left to fend for myself. Even more so when she had her first child at 15. She hated my father which was difficult for me. My middle sister loved my father which was awkward for me, she would demand his time and follow him like a lost puppy. She wasn’t very aware of her emotions and didn’t manage them well, her main way of coping was to go horse riding. There were a few times she beat me, I think because of her inability to monitor her emotions, she denied it afterwards. My mum was suicidal at times and she had an affair that was on and off for a bit over a decade. My dad was busy doing all he could to hold our dis functional family together. While I was hurting myself and shutting myself away or walking our farm for hours avoiding being home.

When I am back there the things that come up for me are the feelings of being invisible and afraid. At times my sisters and parents had all made me feel indivisible… I know it wasn’t their intention but with all that was going on and my being so young I didn’t understand things. I didn’t understand why my sister had said she would always be there but moved out then after moving back fell pregnant and moved interstate. Or why my middle sister demanded my father’s time so much and why she beat me and then denied it. I certainly didn’t understand my mother: her affair with a tyrant and her suicide attempts that seemed to come from nowhere. My dad I couldn’t understand because he stayed, he not only put up with everything but trying to do all he could to make things work. I didn’t even understand myself growing up: why I felt the need to hurt myself and my fear of certain things not being right. I would feel anxious about eating odd numbers of things unless it was 1, 5 or a number ending in 5. I couldn’t sleep unless I have checked the light switched were all facing the same way because of the double switch in the lounge room and hall way.

Being around my mum and dad is fine for me. I can’t be there for too long because I fall back into the old dynamics, but a week or so is fine, I can’t live with them though. Being around my parents and eldest sister I instantly fall back into that way of thinking and feeling from my childhood. There is something about the way that they interact that is like nothing has changed between the three of them. I think that is why I instantly feel that I go back to that emotional space of my childhood. Whereas the dynamics between my mother and father and myself have all changed since those times.

My mother and father’s relationship is very changed from my childhood. My father was always devoted to mum but mum’s devotion to dad is only something that has become present over the last few years. Dad’s relationship to mum has not changed much, he is still very protective, but he has had to let her take care of him lately which changes things. My relationship to my mum has changed greatly since childhood, we are much closer and I understand some of the things that happened back then. I have long forgiven my mum for the pains that I grew up with because she was ill and did things that she would not have otherwise chose to do. Dad and I have learned to talk about the issues we have faced and that we still face through needing to, this started in my late teens and still isn’t exactly easy.

I don’t know why my sister and parents are so stuck in the dynamics of her childhood and adolescents. I know it won’t ever change though. The most difficult part of knowing there will be no change is that mum has anxiety triggers because of it as do I. Not being able to take away a trigger means having to sit with it or change myself… Neither are easy though.

Anyway… My birthday was okay, despite being sick, my mum visited for the day, Matt made me breakfast in bed, the girls sang happy birthday to me and I watched Sailor Moon.

I am looking forward to Mother’s Day. I might post about it but I am so forgetful about posting I might not…